Two thoughts from a book I just finished reading:

If we stop at the cross, we are merely dead – clean of sin, yes, but still dead, and so is whatever we pray for. Re-creation is the true end of prayer. God must speak His Son’s resurrection life into all that breathes and every thing that does not. Let us pray life into all that is. (146)

If we’re afraid to be wrong and we’re still trying to live the Christian life, then we have gotten ourselves into a trap (1 John 1:8). We think we have to possess some righteousness in ourselves, and are afraid we might lose it. But we remain sinners redeemed by Christ. WE wear His righteousness (1 Cor 1:30). So, when we are “right”, it means only that we heard correctly and did what God told us, not that we were somehow intrinsically right. Intrinsic righteousness is only self-righteousness. (195)

The Elijah Task, by John & Paula Sandford, © 1977 Victory House, Inc.